Case Study
One Video Carried My Channel: The Pop-Up Tent Video That Turned Into Evergreen Gold
This is a real case study from my channels. One simple tutorial about folding a pop-up tent carried my channel early, held ~110% retention, and kept compounding long after the upload. No hype, just the math and the trade-offs.
The Backstory: why a “boring” tutorial beat my best travel edits
I’m Carl Tomich. I run three monetized channels: Carl Tomich (my honest creator channel), Globe Travel Adventures (my evergreen travel SEO engine), and Carl Tomich Tech Reviews (a fun gear/tools side project). I also rebranded my main output away from travel because the travel intent was already covered by Globe Travel Adventures. Grow Your Niche is the written home for those lessons, not a guru pitch.
Early on, I thought the best travel edits would do the heavy lifting. I spent hours on footage, story arcs, and b-roll. Those videos looked good. They didn’t move the channel. The video that did move it was a short, plain tutorial: how to fold a pop-up tent. It was a “boring” problem that people actually needed solved.
That single upload carried the channel when everything else was underperforming. It brought consistent search views, it kept the audience for longer than expected, and it acted like a low-level engine that never shut off. It was not glamorous. It was effective.
The Search Intent: why people keep typing this into YouTube every year
This topic has a built-in problem: pop-up tents are easy to open and weirdly hard to close. People feel dumb, and they need help right now. That’s classic search intent. It’s not a vibe. It’s a task.
Search intent like this keeps showing up because the product keeps selling. Every summer, new campers buy the same style of tent and hit the same moment of confusion. That means the demand doesn’t burn out. It repeats.
There are three things I look for in searchable topics like this:
- Ongoing demand: people will keep searching it every season.
- Clear problem: they’re stuck and want a step-by-step answer.
- Actionable format: a short, practical video can solve it.
That’s why this video kept getting views years after the upload. It wasn’t tied to a trend. It was tied to a recurring problem.
Why 110% Retention Happened (plain English explanation)
I’m not claiming magic. The video hit roughly 110% audience retention. That means, on average, people watched a bit more than the full length of the video. That can happen, and it’s not a glitch. Here’s why:
1) Viewers rewind key steps
The tutorial has a few steps that are easy to miss. People pause, rewind, or watch twice as they copy the motion. Every rewind adds minutes to total watch time without adding more viewers.
2) Short videos amplify rewatch behavior
Short videos are more likely to be looped. If a video is 90 seconds and someone watches it twice, your retention shoots past 100%. A 15-minute vlog rarely gets that kind of loop behavior.
3) “Do it with me” formats cause repeats
Step-based tutorials invite repetition. People pause to try the step, then replay to check if they did it right. It’s not entertainment; it’s a hands-on process. That user behavior naturally inflates retention.
So yes, retention can exceed 100%. It’s a combination of rewinds, short length, and a format that encourages repetition. That’s the simplest explanation without pretending it’s magic.
Evergreen vs Viral: why this outlives “trending” content
Viral content is loud and short-lived. Evergreen content is quiet and stubborn. The tent video didn’t spike and disappear. It showed up every month, added watch time, and built a baseline. That baseline paid for a lot of my experimentation later.
Viral videos can be useful if they lead to more aligned viewers, but most viral spikes bring the wrong audience. That’s why I treat evergreen as the foundation and viral as a bonus. If you’re under 50k subs, the compounding matters more than the thrill.
This video didn’t “blow up.” It just kept going. That’s the point. A slow, steady line is more useful to a small channel than one giant spike that never repeats.
The Hidden Danger: when one video carries your channel too hard
There’s a downside to a single video doing all the work. It can distort your analytics and your decision-making. You think the channel is healthy, but it’s one video doing 60–80% of the views. That’s fragile.
It also narrows your identity. Viewers find you for one specific thing and ignore the rest. That’s great if you want to be “the tent guy” forever. It’s not great if you want to broaden into related topics.
The tent video carried the early phase, but I had to build beyond it or the channel would have stalled the moment the demand dipped. It’s a gift, but it’s not a plan.
What I Actually Learned From This (and what I got wrong at the time)
What I learned was simple: usefulness beats aesthetics more often than I wanted to admit. I put so much energy into pretty travel edits that I forgot to ask if anyone needed the video. The tent video solved a problem. That made it searchable, repeatable, and rewatchable.
What I got wrong: I expected that success to translate to the rest of the channel. It didn’t. The audience came for the tutorial, not my personality. I needed more adjacent tutorials to build a real base. The win taught me the difference between a helpful video and a loyal audience.
I also overestimated how fast compounding would show up. It took months before the video became a steady engine. I almost wrote it off too early.
The Repeatable Playbook (principles you can copy, not the exact topic)
You don’t need a tent video. You need a repeatable problem with repeatable search behavior. Here’s the playbook I can actually defend:
- Pick a task people struggle to do alone. “How to” beats “why” for search retention.
- Keep it short and step-based. Short videos invite rewatches during the process.
- Show the exact motion. If it’s a physical task, the camera must show hands and angles clearly.
- Title it like the question. Use the words people type, not clever phrasing.
- Deliver the answer fast. Don’t waste 30 seconds on context.
- Match the thumbnail to the problem. A simple “before/after” visual often wins.
These are principles, not hacks. They work because they match how people actually use YouTube when they’re stuck.
The Reality Check (no overnight success, no guru promises)
The tent video didn’t change my life overnight. It didn’t generate a single viral month or a sudden income wave. It just kept showing up in search, slowly building watch time and adding to the baseline. That’s what evergreen looks like.
I won’t give exact income numbers because that depends on RPM, niche, and seasonality. For tutorial content, the realistic range can be modest to solid depending on the audience and ad inventory. The bigger win wasn’t cash in a single month; it was compounding over time.
If you want to build a channel on evergreen, you need patience. You’re trading short-term excitement for long-term reliability. That trade-off is real, and you should choose it intentionally.
What to Do This Week (3–7 actions)
- List 10 practical problems in your niche that people solve with their hands or tools.
- Search each problem on YouTube and note the recurring phrasing.
- Pick one topic where the results are old, vague, or low-quality.
- Script a short, step-by-step video that delivers the answer in under 2 minutes.
- Shoot it with tight framing on the actual steps (no cinematic filler).
- Title it exactly like the search query.
- Publish and track retention for 30 days before judging it.
FAQ
How can audience retention be above 100%?
Retention can exceed 100% when viewers rewind or watch a short video more than once. Tutorials and “do it with me” videos invite that behavior.
Is a pop-up tent tutorial really evergreen?
Yes, because the problem repeats every season. As long as people buy pop-up tents, they will keep searching for how to fold them.
Evergreen vs viral: which should a small channel focus on?
Evergreen builds a baseline you can rely on. Viral spikes can help, but they’re unreliable and often bring the wrong audience. For small channels, evergreen is usually the safer foundation.
How do I pick searchable topics without guessing?
Use YouTube’s search suggestions and check if the query shows consistent results. If the same question shows up every year, it’s likely evergreen.
Can one video really monetize a channel?
One video can help you qualify for monetization and fund the early grind, but it’s risky to rely on it. Use the win to build adjacent topics so the channel can survive if the one video fades.
Should I copy the exact topic?
No. Copy the principle instead: a clear, repeatable problem with step-based delivery. Your niche has its own version of a “tent video.”